Tell everyone. Wicked awesome. Come skate! Or watch! Or both! woo! http://battleus.com/ 

Woo hoo! Its really tiny, but i’m in a UK Seba ad that will go in a UK skate magazine.

Naomi is gunna buy me a copy, and she send me a scan of it already.

They decided that Sebastien would be good for all the action shots, while Naomi and I would be best to portray the attitude of a true skater.

follow the link for the picture…

bookkeeping software reviews Buy Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe

Finally! My Sebas are here! Last year when we starting freestyle slalom, I bought the Roces SKT100s. I found a few different problems including non-working hinges, oddly placed frames, and the largest problem, bendy-plastic! When it gets hot out, or if they have been in the car for a few hours, the plastic boot of the skate bends in half at my ankle. I was planning on making a video of this, but then I think…

Who cares?!?! The Sebas have arrived! I got them from Momo Sports in Canada. Momo was super nice and speaks English and even took American dollars! The first time I called them, they said that they were going to get Sebas in about 2 weeks and to call back. I called back in two weeks and they said the same thing. I called back in a week and they had them! They said they had both red and black sized 40. I said hold a red size 40 for me. Then I called back to ask about pricing and address information and they said they had no red ones… I was like ummm… someone before said that they were holding a red pair for me. They were like.. yeah we don’t have any red ones… I said, ok ok… black is fine.

I sent the check and off it went into nowhere land. They originally said to send a check for 520.68 Canadian dollars. I looked up what it would take to do that and it would end up costing me like 40 bucks to do the conversion on a bank check. I called Momo back and asked them if they would take American dollars and told them about the problem with converting here and they said it was totally ok. I went to the bank, got a bank check, which cost 10 bucks, for 466.97 US dollars and sent it to:

Momo Sports
530 Jean Paul Perreault
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
J1L2Z2
Attn: Yan Josselin
1-800-914-3077

In about a week, they called me back and said they got my check and they were confirming my order of a red size 40!! I’m like… wait… you DO have red? They said, yup… we do! We’re holding them for you.

Just yesterday they came!! I have them on right now. If I were a good posting doo-bee I would have pictures and videos and MORE pictures… But I don’t. I just have skates on my feet. Yesterday I put them on right away and went out for 10 mintues for a quick jaunt around my condo complex. They were so smoothe and elegant and easy to manuver in! I tried cones but they didn’t come rockered so I was uneasy. The wheels are also super new of course so they stick!

I just came back from skating and I LOVE them. I heard a lot about how they make yer feet numb over and you have to keep taking them off and putting them back on again until you “break them in”. That’s kinda happening for me but not really. My feet only fall asleep if I just sit in them (which I’m doing right now). But if I’m skating in them, the bloods a flowin and my feet are mowin down those cones. So awesome.

Jeremy went to Paris and he said he’d bring me back some wheels. I thought I had told him that I wanted 76’s and 80’s cuz that’s what the old Roces took. I was bummed when I saw the new skates had a max size limit of 76. But then I asked Jeremy (because I was too lazy to look in my skate bag for them) about my wheels that he got for me. He said that he did get me 76’s and 72’s! woo hoo! Before I went skating tonite, I totally rockered them and I have to say… new wheels rockered are PERFECT. I love how they stick. Maybe it’s just the quality of the Seba brand wheel! Who knows.

My feet are now numb after sitting here in them typing for 10 minutes. I must go take them off and sigh as I longingly gaze into their eyes and sigh and smile with hearts all around them… Haha! Kidding! I wouldn’t do THAT… That’s just CRAZY…

Stacy wrote a great review of our PSWC Trip, so i’ll just link to it instead of making up my own less articulate version:

http://www.freestyleskaters.org/2007/06/11/paris-slalom-world-cup/

The venue for BattleUS has finally been approved! We’ll be holding it at Riverbank State Park in NYC. Its a nice outdoor skating rink with a roof overhead, and not too far from Central park (maybe a 15 minute skate, i’ll need to try it out to be sure)

Now there’s tons of other details to figure out, but its a huge relief to have the venue squared, because i’ve officially announced it and people can start buying plane tickets, etc.

Once i get back from PSWC, BattleUS planning will take up most of my free time.

Me and Stacy will both be going to the Paris Slalom World Cup, one of the biggest freestyle slalom competitions on the planet! We’ll both be there for about a week, so there will be plenty of time to learn slalom moves from all the great skaters that will be there. I’m really excited about seeing all the skaters i’ve met from France, London and Germany. I’m also very excited to be going to the city where freestyle slalom seems to have come from. Sebastien, Vinz, Igor, Skali, Olivier are all from France and these are some of the biggest names in the sport!

I almost was not able to go, because tickets were very expensive, but my very awesome and supportive wife cashed in all her frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket.

There’s going to be an amateur and pro category, but I decided to go for the pro group because I think I was on the borderline in germany, and besides, Naomi not-to-subtly called me out in her inlineplanet article:

The German competition in Bremen took a different approach and split the competitors into Pro and Amateur. (I don’t think Jeremy will be competing in the amateur section again!)

So I guess its time for me to start getting beat up by skaters who are leaps and bounds better than me. Which is all good by me, since thats what I did at BattleUK, where there was no amateur group.

So wish me luck. And by that I mean that I’m lucky enough to learn a few new moves while I’m there, and maybe do well enough to move up just one level in the battle pyramid!

UPDATE: Seba told me to consider doing the Amateur Battle, since there will be many great skaters in that category, he said i’d have more fun, so I switched.

Ken, one of my students at Drexel, and I have started a Drexel club for freestyle skating. We were able to get use of the ROTC Armory as a place to practice in the winter, which is great! Next week we’ll be trying to get everyone some decent skates.

Also, there’s an article on inlineplanet about my trip to Bremen.

Mark your calendars for the premier freestyle workshop in the US:

Naomi Grigg is coming to Philadelphia the weekend of June 23rd & 24th.

Sat & Sun morning will be the advanced workshop
Sat & Sun afternoon will be the beginner workshop

Naomi’s workshop is behind just about every US slalom skater who can do more than the crazy, so don’t miss this chance to literally add anywhere from 5 to 15 tricks to your arsenal!

I did the beginner workshop last year and i’ll be doing the advanced one this year.

So today it was something like 70 degrees (F) with blue skies and the sun shining down. I was actually out skating in a T-shirt, and I was hot! The whole time felt very surreal for January, but I had a great skate anyway. Some great people from the past came out, Tom & Sarah, and John Franke.

I gave out lots of USFSA stickers, and practiced cones while Tom & Sarah’s daughter Emma ran around the Art Museum area.

This past weekend I travelled to Bremen, Germany to attend the first Freestyle Slalom Festival. It was a great event with a huge turnout. I’m sure it will become an annual freestyle spot now. The weekend was a great balance of competitions and just doing slalom with everyone when no official competitions were underway. Practicing with all the big names like Seba, Igor, JB, Phil and Nathan was worth the trip alone, never mind that I actually won the amateur battle! Here’s my write up of the weekend.

We did tons of skating over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A small group of skaters showed up Friday night including Seba and Igor, so our small group got to take advantage of some personal training time with the two of them. This totally rocked! Seba worked on heeling and toe-heel spinning with me, both of which I was able to put into my battle runs thanks to his help.

On saturday we skated for at least a few hours before any official events started which was great, because i got to meet tons of skaters, and so many great skaters showed me things i didn’t know yet. Overall this event had tons of unstructured time for skaters to do whatever they wanted, which really made it worth the trip. The “Rollersport Staddion” where it all took place is basically a perfectly smooth cement floor the size of three basketball courts at least. It was perfectly level too.

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